LET'S GET NEW TOGETHER

New Year's Eve is my least favorite night of the year and I've finally figured out why. I don't like saying goodbye, I don't like false cheer, I don't like a lot of noise, I detest the very thought of kissing strangers--and won't, and I start thinking about previous beginnings of new years and remembering awful parties where hoards of people got drunk. Ew, then there was that year when the current male-of-my-dreams finally invited me out. It didn't take long to figure out that I was supposed to be his entertainment and afterward, the party would definitely be over. Shudder, shudder...

Think of the masquerade ball in Phantom of the Opera, pull a bit of silvery gray gauze over the image, and you'll have a facsimile of my memories of new years past.

BUT, this year I've finally got the night, right! Jerry and I have planned the perfect celebration. Before dinner, our neighbors will stop by and we will enjoy some good company. Our dinner will be hot veggie soup. Then we intend to watch a couple of episodes of AbFab (Absolutely Fabulous). After all the laughs AF gives us, a DVD English History lecture will get us in the mood to watch the Seattle Space Needle fireworks at midnight.

Who could ask for anything more? Probably a lot of you!

AND I'm making my resolutions. I'll let you know how long it takes to break each one.

1. Be more available to family and friends.

2. Exercise more. (bet nobody else will have that one)

3. Lose a few pounds. (another original resolution)

4. Stop stressing over what I cannot change.

5. Accept that I can only do my best.

6. Laugh more.

7. Develop healthy sleep habits. (again)

8. Make myself responsible for my own happiness and forget old hurts.

9. Take a day off each week. (I can already feel that one slipping)

10. Give regular thanks for all the wonderful people in my life.

Wow, I'd better print that lot and pin the list where I can see it--daily.

Getting to know our Quillees this year, and sharing so many thoughtful, or funny moments, has been a blessing. I look forward to lots more laughs and lots more opinions and pieces of new information.

Thank you for allowing me to share some corners of your lives.

Have an Absolutely Fabulous 2007.

Stella

Would you share a special "happening" from 2006?

And what are your resolutions for 2007?

GOODY, GOODY . . . was it?

It's been a blu-u-ue Christmas without us... But now we're back, sort of.

Since I am apparently the only working schmuck on duty, I get to grab the good questions:

1. What is your favorite 2006 gift? (that would be a gift received by you)

2. Tee-hee, c'mon, you're among friends. What did you get that you absolutely can't stand, and what are you going to do with it?

~~~

No, I'm not tiddly (I don't drink), this is what happens when you have to work, be an entertaining wife, mom and friend, and be on jury duty--all at the same time. You sit around with a hundred or so of your favorite strangers and think about all the things you should, or would rather be doing. And you come up with the Quilee Questions all your buddies plan to ask when they get back from lolling around, eating bon bons.

I hope each of you is having a lovely time.

Cheers, Stella

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR NOVEMBER WINNER!

Our November contest winner is Kim from Calmar, Iowa. She has won a signed book from each of the Quills: Susan Andersen, Stella Cameron, Lori Foster, Jayne Ann Krentz, Elizabeth Lowell and Suzanne Simmons.

We hope you enjoy the books, Kim!

TWELVE LADIES GIVING and SIX SCRIBBLERS GRATEFUL!

Thank you to all of our wonderful guests who have entertained us for twelve days. I've enjoyed each day's entry and I'm guessing our fabulous friends (Quillees?) appreciate all the insights and sharings, too.


And Stella wishes,

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS and A BLESSED YEAR TO COME~~~TO ALL!

Cherry Adair Talks the Spirit of Giving

I gave myself a hysterectomy for Christmas. No, no. I don’t mean I wheeled myself into the OR wielding a freaking scalpel, get a grip – I faint at the sight of blood, especially my own!! Surgery, pre-Christmas, was my gift to myself this year. I hoped for the best, and expected the worst, so I ordered, (love the internet!) shopped and wrapped before I went in last week.

For me, Christmas 2006 has been cancelled.

Too bad, because I feel fabulous. Where the hell are the themed Christmas trees in every room? The light extravaganza? The usual overdone, overwrought Christmas crap I adore? Damn it, I miss my famous Christmas parties. (so, apparently, do the people who have called and emailed to politely ask if they have been crossed off The List. ☺) I don’t even have out my Christmas front door mat.

Nothing.

Nada.

I could race out and do it all now I suppose. But no. I’ll consider Christmas 2006 a palate cleanser. The champagne sorbet of holidays. Between naps, I’ll watch all those Christmas decorating shows on HGTV and make notes for 2007.

It’s weird NOT to be running around like a BAF (that would be Blue Arsed Fly) this close to the 25th.

Everything (little as it is) has been done.

I wonder what David is getting me for Christmas.

My husband is very fond of ‘theme’ presents for both Christmas and birthdays. I think it’s because by going ‘theme’ he doesn’t have to ponder ‘what else to buy.’ Basically it’s one stop (one thought) shopping.

One Christmas he did all things Gone With The Wind. I got the DVD, the book --leather bound-- a poster, a Scarlett doll, and if I remember GWTW oven gloves. (the fact that I’m not a ‘doll’ person is, apparently, irrelevant in times of indecision. The image of me wearing an apron is too ludicrous to imagine. ☺)

Another year we had a very Muppet Christmas – that was interesting. Kirmet and Fozzie bear toys, DVD’s, books, and …an apron.

I’ve had a small Appliance Christmas. (Just how many spiral curling irons does a woman really need?) Just because there were four different brands in four different colored boxes didn’t mean I needed (or wanted) them all. (they made lovely re-gifts however) That Christmas I also received three interesting personal vibrators.

Curling irons and vibrators. Hmm.

Then there was the baking Christmas extravaganza. The Cuisinart, the half dozen cookie sheets, the dozen cookbooks, and the lovely set of wooden spoons- each individually wrapped. And of course – the apron.

One of my favorites (In retrospect, because I was NOT a happy camper at the time!!) Was the Walgreens Christmas . The Deluxe version.. (One has to picture each of these items individually wrapped, tied with a ribbon no less.) David must have wheeled his cart down every aisle – slowly. I received five different sizes of PERM ROD. Three different sizes of FOAM CURLERS, ethnic hair straightener, red hair dye (not my red, just a red!) Black hair dye (??) and blonde dye (??) I was also the lucky recipient of two electric razors, depilatory cream (3 boxes – Apparently I’m perceived as extremely hairy. Who knew?!) a lovey three pack of thin (useless) toweling turbans for after my shower. Three different types of bubble bath. And OdorEaters inserts for my shoes. (Smelly and hairy apparently. How sadly unattractive!!)

It’s not that I’m not incredibly grateful for his gifts – but the man needs help. And a lot of it. Now I chose a store (more than one is confusing apparently!) and I select a bunch of whatever I want. Jewelry, shoes, clothes, books – whatever. He goes in and picks whatever he likes from my pre selection. This works extremely well. So far so good. The problem is – the older I get, the less I need or want. If I want it, I get it for myself when I want it. (Aries aren’t fond of waiting for anything) And frankly I don’t need anything. I’m extremely lucky. There are people out there who need. . .everything.

This year, I asked David to match my $’s for Toy’s For Tots. (Here is the link for the Marine’s TOYS FOR TOTS program http://toysfortots2006.com/google/home.html) The day before my surgery I dragged him (reluctantly) into the Dollar Store and got him to help me fill a dozen carts with toys for underprivileged kids. It didn’t take him long to get into the spirit of Christmas. He did the boys, I did the girls. It took hours. We had a blast. It was soooo much fun choosing great toys for well deserving children. He took me for a lovey Italian lunch before we drove to our local Fire Department to drop off 600 toys. There weren’t enough bins to hold our toys, and we piled them on the floor, almost blocking the lobby of the Fire station. WAY cool.

Then I used the money earmarked for his present and we went to a local discount store and bought winter coats for kids, and took those to a local collection site that gives warm coats to Foster Children. I made sure the coats were just as hip and cool as they were practical and warm, then pinned a $5.00 bill in each pocket.

And one of my favorite presents of all – We bought several dozen live chickens from Heifer International. An amazing program that helps people help themselves, with gifts that keep on giving. One can give the gift of a cow (or a part of a cow – several people contribute to giving the entire live animal – it doesn’t go in pieces!!) or chickens or other livestock. (http://www.heifer.org/) I wanted to send myself a dozen live chicks just to see how they are wrapped, but resisted. ☺

We decided that this Christmas will probably be one of our best so far. Instead of racking our brains for ‘stuff’ just to have ‘stuff’, we bought gifts with our hearts. We bought things each of us wanted and needed. For other people.

And isn’t that the Spirit of Christmas?

Stay sane and safe,
Smooches

Cherry

Pssst: Susan here. Don't miss Cherry's "Edge of" Books! I'm talkin' hot men, cool intrique. Who can ask for anything more?

Rachel Gibson revisits ghosts of Christmas past

Hello to everyone at Running With Quills and thanks to Susan for inviting me to blog with you all. Since it is December, I thought maybe I’d write a little bit about Christmas.

Like a lot of people, Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I just love everything about it. The crowds, the snow, the shopping frenzy. But I’ve noticed that the older I get, the more nostalgic I become. I find myself thinking about Christmases as a child. About the time I got to be a sheep in my second grade play. I wore fishnet stockings, white go-go boots and a paper costume with cotton balls glued all over it. Man, I thought I was sizzling hot.

I remember my grandparent’s house and walking in the door on Christmas day. I recall the heat on my cold cheeks and the wonderful smells of turkey and ham. Every year my grandparents gave me three dollars in a pair of new socks. Why the socks? Who knows, but the last year my grandmother was alive, she’d figured in inflation and I got five bucks in my pair of socks. I was thirty.

The Christmas that has to be my most memorable, was when I was in the fourth grade. That year I wanted a tape recorder in the worst way. I fussed and fretted and I may have even gone to The Bon and asked Santa, although by that time I was no longer a believer. But to my sheer delight, all that fretting and fussing and subterfuge paid off. I got a small reel to reel tape recorder, and I spent probably the next year recoding just about everything and filled up about six reels. At some point I got bored with it and shoved it in the back of a closet, never to be seen or heard again. . . or so I thought.

Last year when I opened a Christmas present from my mother, nestled in white tissue paper, sat that old reel to reel. I turned it on and it still worked. After I got home that night and was by myself, I turned it on again and listened to the “Rachel’s Spooky Story” tape. Next was a painful tape devoted to me singing my favorite songs, including The Candy Man by Sammy Davis Jr. and I Think I Love You, by David Cassidy. And I must have thought my brothers were the height of hilarity because I’d devoted a lot of embarrassing tape to them pulling each other’s fingers.

Now, all these years later, I am happy to say that my story telling ability has improved. Sadly, my singing voice has not–which doesn’t keep me from singing anymore now than it did then. And I am vastly relieved that my sense of humor has risen out of grade school, and I no longer find potty humor side splitting and hilarious.

Listening to those old tapes was funny, painful and embarrassing, and I’m truly grateful for the forgotten memories they stirred in my adult brain.

Anyone else willing to share their funny, painful and embarrassing Christmas memories? Come on. You know you want to.


Merry Christmas,
Rachel Gibson




Psssst! Susan here--be sure to check out Rachel's I'm In No Mood For Love. (Book Two in her writers series) Ohhh, yeah!

Suzanne presents Curtiss Ann Matlock

Curtiss Ann Matlock wishes all of us a Christmas State of Mind

"Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind." --- Mary Ellen Chase, writer and teacher.

My husband, Jim, and I decided to go Christmas shopping the first Saturday of December, which illustrates our state of mind as being, well, a little out of our minds.

To fully illustrate the point, it should be understood that we are basically hermits. We like breathing our own air, and where we live, we have plenty of it— forty acres of quiet paradise fifteen miles from the nearest grocery store, over a mile from any paved road, a quarter-mile from the nearest neighbor, with deer in the pasture most mornings. We can count on one hand the number of times we go shopping. We Internet shop, and are on first name basis with the postman, FedEx and UPS drivers.

Changes, however, have been growing upon us. The big house echoes with just our voices, and with realities of Jim’s looming retirement and the prospect of Christmas morning alone. No traveling to grandma’s house, no visiting siblings. And it is the first Christmas in nearly thirty years without our beloved only child, who this year moved nine-hundred miles away, knee-deep in new job, new house, and preparing for his own new child.

The wreath isn’t hung on the door right after Thanksgiving, and I realized there will be no need for the stocking that has hung for twenty-eight years— not only that, I do not have the stocking, because I gave it to him last year. I’m not baking, because Jim and I have dietary restrictions. We have been saying things like: "Maybe I’ll skip sending out Christmas cards this year." "Let’s get an artificial tree. It’s time." "Let’s not get each other gifts, we have everything." Things are different. We’re in a funk.

Then, suddenly, with no thought, I said, "Let’s go shopping," and Jim said, "Okay."

The interstate highway is wall-to-wall, the exit ramp backed up. The parking lots at all the fast food places resemble the toy road rally sets, people racing in and out. At the entry to the lot of a strip mall, there has just been a wreck. We are in time to see a woman get out of one of the cars and stomp over to yell at the driver of the other car. Down at the holiday shop, though, we are pleasantly surprised to discover the crowd light. Why? Because everyone else has bought their holiday decorations, and pickings are thin. Still, we agree it is time to dispense with all the mess of a ceiling-high, imported from the north Douglas Fir. Actually, Jim has suggested it, and I have agreed to consider.

Jim eyes the artificial offerings, especially the fiber-optic one. Only five feet tall, just plug it in. The plastic needles glow. What about the shiny aluminum trees? Remember them? They’re back. I hated them in the sixties, but now my view is soft with nostalgia. We go round and round the display, calling, "Look! Come see!"

In the end, though, "Oh, honey...just one more year." So it is agreed. It will be the live tree farm again this year. I promise to choose one half— no, two thirds— as tall as usual, and Jim will haul it home, saw off the bottom branches and stick it in water. To celebrate this decision I reach for a shiny silver and red glass Victorian bauble, and Jim picks up all new light strings.

Then there is the Wal-mart, which in our neck of the woods is just about all there is. We may have come to the city, but we are not doing the mall. There is no air at the mall.

The Wal-mart parking lot is, well, what did we expect? The driver ahead of us is waiting on a close-in space and blocking traffic all the way out into the street. Restraining from ramming him out of the way, Jim maneuvers around; we see the driver is still waiting when we walk, hand in hand and smug with our good sense, into the store.

My word. A barrage of light and sound assault us, and smugness vanishes. The crowd is such that many a time I am sucking in my gut to squeeze through, and maneuvering the cart like a moonshiner around roadblocks. Other shoppers are doing the same. It is step out of the way, or be run down in every single isle. "No, you cannot take off your coat, you are not hot!" a passing woman screams at her son in such a way that I straighten my own coat. Shelves are in disarray, or simply empty. I open three cartons of my favorite eggs, looking for one without broken shells. And everyone breathing up my air!

So this is Christmas, John Lennon sings in my head.

But then—

I am forced to step aside near the meat freezers for a stream of people going in the opposite direction. My eyes meet those of a scruffy, tough-looking man in a black stocking cap and lined face. Suddenly there is that mystical connection without words. The man and I grin at each other.

His eyes truly twinkle— Santa Claus eyes— and as he passes me, he murmurs, "Merry Christmas."

It was my first Merry Christmas wish.

Things seems to look a little different. I went over to the music department, am nearly rundown and take my life in my hands to ask a passing clerk laden with boxes, "Where are the Christmas music CDs?" He answers, "I’ll show you," rather than simply pointing. Along our way a lady stops him, and he calmly says he will help her in a minute, then leads me directly to the music.

Beside me a teenage girl with an earring in her nose picks up the The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, of all things.

A young woman calls, "Mom...here is one!" It is three generations of women shopping together. They are smiling and having a time.

A young father waits by the ladies rest room, with three children in a cart. He hitches up his fashionably baggy jeans and carefully places a blanket over the baby carrier, then pokes his head down beneath the cover to speak and smile at the baby.

I find the paper corner cutter I wanted! And Christmas stickers! Jim finds the perfect container to hold his paintbrushes. And a table-top fiber-optic tree.

The woman ahead of us at checkout strikes up conversation: "I don’t usually come to Wal-mart on Saturday."

"We don’t either, but we were feeling wild and daring." We all chuckle and share shopping stories.

All the way home, I think about that tough-looking man with the Santa Claus eyes. I think about our exchange while I unpack our purchases, and while I pull out my annual Christmas cup in which to have tea, and slice a piece of Christmas fruitcake, with the very red candy cherries. I think about it as I see that we had bought one gift for someone on our list, and every other thing had been for Jim and myself. And they were all toys.

Yes, this is Christmas.

It is a state of mind, and one bound only by the act of choosing to have it.

I get up and clean off the mantle, then dig out our stocking hangers and Jim’s and my stockings. I put them in place for the first time. Hey, kids still live here.

Wishing you all a Christmas state of mind!
Curtiss Ann

Inquiring Minds want to know, of course, what will you do to put yourself in a Christmas state of mind?

P.S. To learn more about Curtiss Ann's lovely and heartfelt books, please visit her web site at www.curtissannmatlock.com.

Suzanne presents Shirley Jump

Shirley Jump commiserates with RUDOLPH IN THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINE

I feel bad for Rudolph, I really do. I think the poor little fella gets a bad rap every Christmas. First, there’s an entire song devoted to his physical handicap, which is completely un-PC, and not at all very nice. Then, to make matters worse, he’s only employed for one day out of the year.

Here’s Santa, running all over the world, dispensing gifts with abandon to every Tommy, Jenny and Larry, but he can’t keep one tiny reindeer on the payroll. Every time I drive by the unemployment office on my way to the mall, I keep an eye out for four little hooves and a big red nose, sure I’ll see Rudolph handing in his paperwork to collect a check.

Being in an unpredictable field myself, I can sympathize with Rudolph. One day you’re hot, your nose is on fire, the next day, your book is off the shelves, your sleigh reins are retired, and you’re put out to pasture with the sheep, or whatever it is that grazes up there at the North Pole.

Of course, unlike Rudolph, I have ten fingers and can type up another idea, send it off to my editor and wait a couple light years for her to read it and decide if it totally stinks like reindeer poo or will actually make a decent book.

Like Rudolph, I wait around for someone to drop contracts sort of down my chimney (though my editor is not a fat guy in a red suit). They never come wrapped, but they do come in nice little envelopes, and I really wouldn’t care if they came by carrier pigeon, as long as they keep on coming.

I do have it a lot better than Rudolph, though. I don’t have to sleep in a barn, after all. No one makes fun of my nose (especially not since that little mole removal thing). There aren’t any songs making fun of me (okay, not that I know of. With the MySpace revolution, there could be a whole page dedicated to making fun of me and I’d be completely oblivious). No one’s rerunning a movie from the 1960s featuring my hopelessly nasal voice and jerky Claymation body running all around the North Pole with a dentist elf, searching for misfits. It’s a cute movie, really, and I do hope Rudolph at least gets a cut of the royalties because a reindeer’s gotta eat, you know.

So, this December 26th I can’t complain. At least I’ll still have a job. Little old Rudolph though. . . he’ll be hunting for the North Pole unemployment line once again. And waiting 364 days for his nose to shine in the sky, one reindeer who may go down in history—

But won’t have much to show in his retirement account for all that notoriety.

Inquiring Minds want to know at this festive time of year: Is your job in the unpredictable reindeer/writer category? Or do you have a relatively stable working life?

P.S. More of Shirley's crazy and delightful sense of humor can be enjoyed through her romantic comedies. So check out www.ShirleyJump.com and her current bestselling Christmas novella.

Christina Dodd HOLDS HERSELF UP AS A BAD EXAMPLE

Jayne, here, to introduce my special guest, Christina Dodd. She writes both historical and contemporary romance and rumor has it she will soon be moving into the paranormal. Regardless of where she goes, I will follow because I love her books. They are wonderfully clever and thrilling. Enjoy!


CHRISTINA DODD:

THE PRINCE KIDNAPS A BRIDE is my thirty-first book, and my first book published in December.

I’ve been lucky. A December book is an author’s least favorite fate. The bookstores are swamped selling books for Christmas, so the paperback romances are frequently late getting on the shelves. The readers are so busy they don’t have time to read. Somewhere in the country there’s a blizzard, and people, selfish beings that they are, are more concerned with having electricity and staying warm than in braving the icy roads to get a book, no matter how much they want it.

On the other hand, THE PRINCE KIDNAPS A BRIDE has a lot of pluses going for it. For one thing, no one ever asks what’s it’s about because … get it? THE PRINCE KIDNAPS A BRIDE. It’s the third book in the Lost Princess series. The cover’s sexy and romantic. And there’s the dedication …

To Bernadette and Roberto —
Thank you for being so patient with me through six years of learning to write.
I’d be lying if I said that I enjoyed every minute,
But I’ll never forget you or what you taught me.

I get letters asking — who are Bernadette and Roberto?
They’re the hero and heroine of my very first, never-published and never-to-be-published novel, ETERNAL SPRING. It took me six years to write that book. It had dramatic unveilings and volcanoes and an earthquake and a smallpox epidemic and a Spanish landowning hero tortured by the inequities of the Colonial system.

It was truly awful.

Oh, and did I mention it was set in Guatemala?

But I had a great time writing ETERNAL SPRING, and THE PRINCE KIDNAPS A BRIDE is my twenty-fifth historical. I wanted to acknowledge the two characters and our long relationship. So not only do I mention them in the dedication, but if while you read THE PRINCE KIDNAPS A BRIDE, you’ll catch a the brief glimpse into the opening scene of that first book where Roberto catches Bernadette bathing under a waterfall (I said it was awful!). And the scene in the House of Ill-Repute contains characters I know very well — the madam and her working girls I invented in ETERNAL SPRING.

When I talk to unpublished writers, especially the writers who have been writing for a long time and are getting discouraged, I remind them I wrote for ten years without any publisher interest. I talk about six years spent with Bernadette and Roberto in Guatemala, doing everything wrong while learning my job, and pretty soon they realize if I can do it, they can, too. That’s me — the bad example that gives every writer (or artist or musician or chef or dancer) hope.

I once heard a story about a woman, born in the twenties, who wanted to become an artist. Her parents, of course, wouldn’t allow such a thing, so she said, “When I grow up, I’ll paint pictures.” But when she grew up, she got married and had children and she didn’t have time to paint. So she said, “When the kids are grown, I’ll paint pictures.” But her husband died, and she had to go to work to support herself, and she said, “When I retire, I’ll paint pictures.” But when she retired, she had arthritis and couldn’t hold a brush. So she said, “When I go to heaven, I’ll paint pictures.”

The holidays are a time of hope, and the New Year is the time to reflect on your deepest dreams and desires. What are your hopes and aspirations? What are your goals for 2007 and forever? You can tell me — I’m your bad example … and you don’t want to wait for heaven before you paint your pictures.

http://www.christinadodd.com

Cathie Linz writes about Mountain People and Ocean People

Jayne, here, to introduce one of my very good friends and favorite romance writers, Cathie Linz. If you’re looking for wonderfully warm, funny, heartwarming romance, Cathie is your writer. The first two books in her new series ( GOOD GIRLS DO and BAD GIRLS DON’T) are perfect for the season. Trust me, you’re going to love them.

Cathie Linz

There are two types of people – mountain people and ocean people. You’ll notice that I put mountain people first. That’s not just because of my inner librarian needing to alphabetize life. It’s because I definitely am in the mountain people camp.

I come from a long line of mountain people. My grandmother and grandfather frequently skied in the Alps. My mother has a great story about a ski trip during her boarding school days in Bavaria and how she lost her ski poles and couldn’t stop. She ended up throwing herself forward which resulted in the snow being scooped up via the waistband of her ski pants and filling them with snow.

Maybe that trauma was the reason she ended up in the Chicago area – geographically as flat as a pancake. And maybe that was also the reason she never let her kids ski. But the love of the mountains….ah, that came through to me loud and clear. I can still remember the first time I saw the Alps. I felt connected. Like a battery plugged into a power source.

Since then I’ve also visited the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, the Rockies in Colorado, the Sierras in California and the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. I visited Aspen before it became the jetsetter’s fave locale. But the Alps remained my favorites. The Austrian Alps in particular.

Then I visited the Canadian Rockies. Wow! (I’m a writer. I’ve got a way with words describing mountains. Can you tell? )

Okay, so the Canadian Rockies do not have those little chalets with the flower boxes on the balconies. And no, you can’t get a fantastic cup of hot cocoa “mit schlagg” (with whipped cream) around every corner. Plus there are no conditerei with fantastic cakes like Linzertorte (not named after me although it should have been) and Florentine cookies. And I haven’t even talked about the Swiss chocolate…

But I digress. The Canadian Rockies don’t have all that unless you stop at Chalet Lake Louise or the Banff Springs Hotel, which are world-class resorts and places I frankly can’t afford to visit. What the Canadian Rockies do have are breath-taking views and glacial lakes that glow and that make you think someone dyed them that color. Here in Chicago we do dye the Chicago River green for St. Patrick’s Day. But in Canada those colors are real.

Moraine Lake is my favorite lake in the world. It has ten peaks surrounding it – all of which are over ten thousand feet high. You are so close, it feels like you could just reach out and touch them.

It’s not like I haven’t visited beaches and seen the oceans. I was just at Daytona Beach a few months ago.

I like beaches. Bermuda is wonderful (yes, the sand really is pink). St. Martin is pretty. The Oregon coast is really spectacular.

It’s just that I LOVE mountains. And I always have photos I’ve taken of them on my website cathielinz.com.

My characters share my love of travel. In my current romantic comedy BAD GIRLS DON’T the heroine Skye grew up traveling with her mom and sister up and down the west coast – from Alaska to California. I know I said that there are two kinds of people but Skye refuses to be categorized. She’s both a mountain and an ocean person. Frankly, Skye just likes being different and doing her own thing. I’d never written about someone like her before. She really doesn’t care what other people think about her. As long as the people she loves know who she is, she’s fine. But bad girls don’t fall for uptight lawmen like Studly Do-Right Nathan Thornton. Nathan always follows the rules. Skye always breaks them.

In the end Skye isn’t as tough as she makes out and Nathan isn’t as indifferent as he’d like. I was thrilled that the Chicago Tribune described BAD GIRLS DON’T as “irresistible” while Booklist gave it a starred review and said it’s “exceptional.”

I’m not sure if Skye and Nathan can agree on a winter getaway – the mountains or the ocean. They might want the best of both worlds.

What about you? What would your idea of an ideal winter getaway be? Are you drawn to the sound of the ocean or the majesty of the mountains? Are you into pina coladas? Or hot chocolate? Or both?

As for me, I’m already sipping my hot cocoa…and nibbling on Lindt truffles. All magically calorie-free, of course.

-- Cathie Linz

The Music of Christmas, by Cindy Hwang, Lori's editor

When Lori first asked me to do a guest blog on Christmas, I agreed with no idea whatsoever on what to blog about. Don't get me wrong--I love Christmas, but blogging, not so much.

At first I came up with the idea to write about Christmas romances and how much I adore reading Christmas romance anthologies, especially the Signet Regency anthologies, but then Karen Solem told me she was going to write about Christmas anthologies in her blog, so out went that idea. Then I came up with food--specifically, all the yummy food I usually binge on during the holidays. But I've made an early New Year's resolution to eat healthier and to try to lose some weight (in a moment of insanity I figured over the holidays was a great time to begin to watch my eating habits), and writing about food makes me hungry, and depriving myself of mouth-watering Christmas goodies makes me cranky, so...out went that idea as well. Stoopid slowed-down metabolism!

So then I started to really think about how I celebrate Christmas in New York, and I realized that there was one thing that had been--slowly but surely--developing into an important part of the whole Christmas experience for me, and that was music. From secular to religious, Christmas music is everywhere in New York after Thanksgiving. And I do mean everywhere--musicians play in on the streets, under ground in the subway stations, and on the subway trains as well. Stores pipe it in the aisles, and department stores even pipe it outside so that the elaborate window displays have a soundtrack. It's on the radio, and there are countless holiday concerts as well. And in the last few years, some of my friends and I have established a new Christmas tradition--we always attend Clay Aiken's Christmas concerts.

Some of you I'm sure are familiar with Clay Aiken from his American Idol days, and others are familiar with his pop albums. I've been a big fan of his from the very beginning, and have always gone to his pop concerts. When I first heard that he was going to do Christmas concerts as well, I was less excited because I really love his pop concerts. But I decided to go to one anyway--his voice is fabulous, no matter what he's singing.

Well, this is the third year Clay has been doing Christmas concerts, and they're now a highlight of my entire year. Not only do I adore his Christmas concerts, so do my friends, and we've made it a tradition to attend one together every year now. Sometimes it'll be the only time in a very busy season that I'll see some of them at all, and I'm grateful that the concerts help us make time for each other.

I've already gone to Clay's Christmas concert this year, and my friends and I are already planning for next year's. So whenever I play Clay's Christmas album, I'll think of my friends and smile, knowing that like one of my favorite Christmas song says, "Faithful friends who are dear to us, travel near to us once more."

Do you too have a favorite holiday CD or artist?
What about a special tradition that you celebrate with your friends, family and loved ones? I hope so.

May you have yourself a merry little Christmas now!

Cindy Hwang
Executive Editor

Karen Solem, on Christmas Reading

I was surprised and, I admit, fearful when Lori asked me to write a piece for her blog. What could I say, how would I say it? The theme is Christmas –how hard can that be but I was sure so much had already been written on the subject what new could I possibly add and from the publishing angle at that. But I thought about it that evening - books are such a big part of my Christmas celebrations and that’s what I can share that with you.

I like to give books as gifts. Naturally I would to support the writing community I so love but it’s more than that. Knowing what a friend or family member enjoys and finding just the right book on that subject, or introducing them to a new author or concept is a sign of caring to me. This book means something to me – I hope it can mean something special to you, too. One friend still talks about the book of garden poetry I gave to her five years ago.

From childhood I remember the thrill of opening the gift of a new book (in those days it was anything about horses), and that thrill hasn’t left me in all these years. Even though I read for a living I still love to receive books – there’s little I enjoy more than discovering a new writer who will perhaps bring insight into my own life – this past year I’ve been very focused on the work of Jon Katz who writes so beautifully about dogs and what they bring to our lives. No, I don’t have kids but I have my beautiful (and very naughty) Owen, a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy.

Thinking about books at Christmas I remembered when, as editor in chief of Silhouette Books, we came up with the concept of Christmas Short stories and how wonderful and exciting those first collections were. I still have a boxed set of the first three on my bookshelf at home. We has so much fun choosing the authors and working on the cover design – the excitement was infectious among the whole Silhouette team as we waited for books to reach the marketplace for Christmas 1986. If not the first Christmas romance novellas they are among the first published and look where that has led today. That year Nora Roberts, Maura Seger, Debbie Macomber and Tracy Sinclair all shared the joys and warmth of Christmas in a special story for readers. This year, just look at all the heartwarming Christmas novels and novellas available for readers! Lori alone has three on sale now and they’re all so wonderful.

For me, some of my favorite Christmas moments come after the rush of shopping, wrapping, mailing, traveling and maybe way too much celebrating and Christmas is over, I love that I then have lots of quiet time to relax and read, Owen will be lying on the floor beside my chair. I already have this year’s novel chosen and I’ve been savoring for the last month the thought of having the chance to really get into it without too many distractions. Maybe that’s also why Christmas stories are so appealing – in the middle of the many things we’re all doing everyday there’s a heartwarming short story you can read in an evening. I hope you can make some quiet time during your celebrations to enjoy these special offerings. Do you have anything set aside to read for your holiday vacation? I’d love to know.

Wishing you all a joyful Christmas and the happiest of New Years,
Karen Solem

ELIZABETH'S DAUGHTER AND THE REAL WORLD OF FICTION

In case you thought I was kidding about the Maxwell dinner conversations, let me introduce you to my daughter, Heather Maxwell.

In addition to holding an advanced degree in international relations, speaking several languages, and being the unhappy owner of the Knee from Hell (seven surgeries and counting), Heather is the author of two novels of romantic suspense: WHEN THE STORM BREAKS (Walden/Border’s winner of the best-selling romantic suspense debut) and NO ESCAPE.

When not experimenting with the wonders of orthopedic surgery, Heather works on her third novel, ONCE BURNED.

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You probably aren’t going to believe this, but my blog topic and my father’s were developed completely independently of one another. In fact, I didn’t read his contribution until I was nearly done with my own. I could preen and say something like “great minds think alike” but, in reality, it is probably more a case of one anarchist showing up at the institution she wishes to torch and finding someone already there with a can of gasoline in hand. Though since my father is quite the diplomat, I’m sure he’s going after the system piece by piece. Like the good little insurgent that I am, I’d love to stand back and watch the conflagration. But diplomacy has its place. I should know—six years of my life and many thousands of hours studying international relations and the politics of developing countries must have been good for something.

Let’s assume that Evan Maxwell’s blog will, indeed, end up being the brilliant piece of market analysis of future trends that I believe it is. If so, it flies in the face of conventional wisdom within the New York publishing industry. Why should I care about NYC, you ask? After all, chances are you’re sitting in the comfort of your living room somewhere outside the NY metro area. Furthermore, a recent RWA survey of romance readers ( http://www.storyforu.com/statisticsnew.htm) shows that about one in four residents of the Western, Southern, and Mid-Western regions of the US reads romance/women’s fiction, compared to just over one in ten in the Northeast (where NYC reigns supreme in terms of influence and population numbers). So why should we care what happens in NY?

Because NYC is not just the heart of the publishing industry—it is the spinal cord, trunk, limbs, and very brain of it, as well. There are only a few “major” players in the North American publishing industry that have their headquarters, or even offices, outside of the New York metro area.

As a result, the overwhelming majority of publishing executives, editors, and sales & marketing staff physically lives and works in one of the world’s largest cities. That city, the quintessential urban environment, very much shapes the lives of these people. Some were born and raised there, others sought out the bright lights of the big city as ambitious young adults. Often the best and brightest in their classes at school, they are no different from the smart young graduates who gravitate to big cities everywhere. They went to college for degrees in liberal arts and business, and left eager to apply what they had learned in their literature, sociology, marketing, and statistics courses.

Having roomed with two business majors all through college, I can tell you that the marketing and sales coursework of business administration degree programs everywhere are pretty much uniform. Business is taught as a science, with accepted laws, corollaries, theories, and doctrines. Those teachings guide the daily actions of people involved in any business that is driven by marketing and sales—and the publishing industry is, above all else, about the numbers.

But you may wonder why I care about this business stuff. I’ve slipped the leash but good, escaped from my Fortune 500 corporate cubicle, and am now making my way as a published author. An artist—okay, those are my words, hold still while I stuff them in your mouth. Anyway, you might think that as a self-employed author I don’t have to be concerned with business doctrines and sales & marketing precepts anymore. Heck, I don’t even have to follow the rules, right? I get to sit in front of a computer and create whatever I want. Rules? Who cares about those puppies when you’re queen of the world—or at least the fictional world that resides on your hard drive?

Ahem. I do. I don’t want to—really, I don’t. But I must make a living like everyone else. I want my career as a writer to grow, so I need to navigate the publishing industry as carefully as I made my way through the business world. Actually, a lot MORE carefully than I did during my days as a project manager. A more opinionated and insubordinate employee you will never find. I didn’t do it to be a bad little corporate drone; I did it because I was passionate about fighting for my projects and the people working with me. I wanted every project to be successful, and when I saw impediments to success, I called them out. Loudly. Again, this was not for the perverse thrill of watching my boss’s face turn purple while a tic throbbed madly in his temple. That was merely a great fringe benefit. In reality, I just wanted to speak truth to power. My truth. A lot of it, and quite often.

And guess what? Power gets tired of it. Power crushes little bugs of truth like dim-witted cockroaches sitting in the middle of the kitchen counter in the broad light of day. Heck, I’m probably slandering cockroaches here. At least they’re smart enough to dive for cover when a giant shoe hovers over their heads. But those who speak their truth to powerful people tend to think of that truth as a shield, one which will protect them when they charge into the corporate conference room.

Good gravy, what a moron I was.

Since leaving the business world rather, um, precipitously, I’ve come to realize that there are many truths out there. As many truths as there are people to interpret them. I’ve learned the value of looking for and understanding other peoples’ truths, for they are as deeply and passionately held as my own.

The publishing industry has its own truths, and these are held to be self-evident. Of direct impact on my career is the one that is presented as the guiding principle of women’s fiction: international settings don’t sell. The corollary: Readers of women’s fiction want characters and storylines that they can identify with, and locales they can picture themselves in while they commute to their jobs each day. That does not include so-called “exotic settings” and confrontations with dangerous international criminal gangs, for example.

Another corollary: Women’s fiction readers don’t like novels that have a backdrop of socio-political conflict that can’t be fully resolved within the span of 300-500 pages. Specifically, this publishing truism holds that things like international crime syndicates and the vagaries of nation-states can never be “fixed” in a book. Or even a series of them. Following on this corollary, many folks in the publishing industry believe that readers simply don’t want to be faced with “big” and “ugly” problems that can’t ever be believably eliminated—problems like the trafficking of human beings, terrorism, war, the upheavals of nation-building, rogue states with nuclear weapons, or the so-called Clash of Civilizations.

Yet all these things make my heart go pitter-patter with the passionate desire to fix them, even if only within the confines of my novel. I’m sure this does the Jesuits at my Georgetown alma mater proud, but boy does it make my life difficult when I try to write within the boundaries of my chosen genre. Boundaries which are defined by the deeply held beliefs of the publishing industry.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that these horrible modern realities thrill me. They don’t. That doesn’t mean I can’t stare them in the face, though, and call them what they are.

But where the publishing industry looks at a bleak international backdrop and sees a dark reality that has no place in women’s fiction, I see an opportunity. An opportunity to explore large themes and important issues—ones that have a real and undeniable impact on each and every one of us as citizens of the global community. I see an opportunity to stare evil in the face. To allow a handful of my characters to defeat a small part of that evil between the covers of my book.

These are my truths, and I have spoken them to power before. And I got squashed, too. Metaphorically speaking.

But if I learned nothing else in my previous work incarnation, it was the need to understand that others have their own passionate truths. I understand that in the practical, emotionless world of business, the only important thing is sales. That is the truth that is held above all others. And that is supposedly the only thing that drives the decisions on which authors get published and which storylines will be supported by the individual publishing houses.

Romance fiction publishers, who are sitting on a $1.2 billion industry, are certain that they are meeting the needs of their customers.
Where have we heard that before? Does anyone remember the time when the romance genre was only Harlequin serials? Is it that readers truly loved only British settings, British authors, arrogant men and swooning virgins? That was Harlequin’s belief, and they supported it by pointing to their great sales numbers. Then an American upstart, Silhouette, came along. They hired American authors who wrote about modern American settings and sensibilities, and they blew Harlequin’s truth away.

Don’t even get me started on perceived truths for historical romances and their covers. Remember the bodice rippers of the old days, with covers so bad readers either ripped them off or stuffed their books inside something else to hide them?

Ditto for why romantic suspense vanished after Mary Stewart, not to reappear for a generation.

And let’s not even mention how hard it was for paranormal romances to get their little furred and clawed feet in the door.

In other words, what’s selling now is not necessarily the only thing people would buy. Given a choice, consumers will never fail to surprise and amaze those who seek to meet their needs.

Could today’s market, even with its comparatively broad base of offerings, suffer from the same inadequacies early women’s fiction did? How do we, as consumers, effect a change? In short, who determines what is out there and available for sale, and how do we get their number?

Well, that would be the folks in the publishing business—the editors, executives, and sales staff who authors rely on to get their product to market. We authors love these guys, because without them we’d have to go back to living Dilbert’s life in an office cubicle. We have a rewarding symbiotic relationship with our publishers—we provide a creative product, they provide the expertise required to get that product to market. But like any producer of any type of consumable, it is the job and goal of the “manufacturer” to attempt to meet the needs of their purchasing public.

So I’d like to know whether you believe that the current offerings in women’s fiction adequately meet your needs as a reader. In other words, if there was something different out there, would you buy it? Are you simply buying what’s out there by default?

And especially: Would you buy or not buy a book based solely upon whether it took place in an “exotic” setting or had a backdrop of socio-political conflict?

Speak now, or someone else will determine what you read.

ELIZABETH'S HUSBAND ON THE REAL WORLD AND POPULAR FICTION

On the Third Day of Christmas...

Whether holiday or everyday, each family has its own customs. In ours, family dinners and conversations are a treasured custom. Because we have diverse minds and peculiar interests, conversation is lively, to say the least. From those conversations have come the backdrop of my recent books.

In effect, Evan has become the research arm of Two of a Kind, Inc., our company. His fascination with transnational crime, failed states, feral cities, and non-state actors (private corporations or individuals) has become mine.

So much of the modern world doesn’t make the headlines.

Too much of it affects our lives in unsuspected ways.

St. Kilda Consulting, the new Elizabeth Lowell “series,” is about the rest of that iceberg.

Meet the ice breaker, my husband and sometime co-author Evan Maxwell, the best present I ever found under any tree!

(You'll note that there isn't a question at the end of the blog. Don't be shy. By now, we shouldn't have to always coax input.)

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People in the main-stream media (MSM) seem to be tumbling to the fact that our world has changed, radically, in the past decade. Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review crime fiction reviewer, recently wrote that she was amazed how many mystery writers were injecting elements of international intrigue into their stories.

Since she likes regional and small-canvas mysteries, she didn’t care much for the trend. After all, it’s hard to put your lead character into an international thriller if he/she is a meter-reader in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She allowed as how some authors get away with it but she was skeptical about the value of the exercise in general.

I suggest that the trend is real and irreversible.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a whole new world out there for us to write about in popular fiction. It’s a dangerous world with a host of new and inventive characters, both heros/heroines and villains. The settings can remain cozy and domestic, but they are linked to a much bigger and more complex world. And the crimes that are at the heart of these mystery/suspense/thriller stories are incredibly more threatening than the old, plain-vanilla murders that Sam Spade and Ross MacDonald solved.

In short, we are, as writers and as citizens, living in a screwball, high-tension, fast-paced world populated by average citizens, clever politicians, power-hungry executives of multinational corporations, renegade warlords with their own private militias, transnational crime bosses whose minions can jump out of closets in a dozen countries and start shooting, and finally, megalomaniacal messiahs who love to foment chaos just for the pure nihilistic hell of it.

And as a writer/researcher who loves to concoct storylines with some connection to contemporary problems, all I can say is, “Bring it on!”

I first began to sense the changes in the geo-political possibilities about the time I discovered this grand new time-sink called the World Wide Web.

Now, the Web is a menace to civilization, of that I am sure. But it’s here to stay and we can’t afford to pretend that it isn’t. When I first got an ISP address, I found myself flitting like a bumblebee on crystal meth from subject to subject, linking and Googling and jumping from arcane new subject to more arcane new subject.
I discovered blogs and bloggers whose minds were truly demented, in a constructive way or not. I discovered search engines that took me deeper into subjects than I should have gone. Surfing is a kind of narcotic high. It has changed the way we connect to one another and to the bigger world.

But over time, I found myself circling closer and closer to a set of subjects that seemed important to me. As a professional journalist, I was always fascinated by the ways the criminal underworld and the belle monde of polite society intersect. And as a novelist with my wife, I tried to explore those connections more deeply and entertainingly than I could as a reporter.

The Web did nothing to discourage that interest. In fact, the free-form research firm of Google, Dogpile & Internet Exploder exposed me to ideas and authors I never would have encountered in the stacks of the largest research library in the world. I found myself reading long, thoughtful papers by professors at the Army War College and short, waspish blog entries by former spooks and spies dismayed by the trends they saw in national and international politics.

Even before 9/11, I began reading open-source analyses of global Jihadi movements, criminal cartels strong enough to destabilize sovereign countries, and international gun-running operations that took payment for their deadly wares in diamonds, rare minerals and airplanes loaded with exotic tropical hardwoods.
I discovered writers who believed that the shattering of the Old World Order in the 1990s would lead, indeed was leading, to a New Medievalism, where the old-form nation-states were being challenged by all kinds of NSAs, non-state actors.

(I know, I know, it’s a new jargon, but it has meaning. “NSA” is a name that can be applied to anything from international charity groups like Oxfam and the Red Cross to private military companies like the ones who now have 20,000 gunslingers engaged in various jobs in Iraq. An NSA can be a private militia in need of modern arms and munitions. It can be an extended network of Mongolian clans who live in yurts and drink yak milk. It can even be a cult like Aum Shinrikyo, which was the first NSA to mount an attack with a weapon of mass destruction--Sarin gas in the Tokyo subway system--against civilian targets for no discernible political reason except that they could.)

This basic concept, the non-state actor, is a way of describing the new players and the new landscape of the 21st Century. We are living amid failed states, feral cities and no-go zones that are beyond any government’s control. In short, we live in a world where violence and political power are not the sole purview of states with their armies, police forces and civil controls.

One day while searching the Web for more signposts to the future, I ran across a passing reference on the Web that was almost as compelling as NSA. An essay by a retired colonel named Max Manwaring, described the concept of “4G Warfare,” a term he defines as the way weak forces wage war against strong ones.

This may seem like really turgid stuff, probably interesting only to an old political science major who has spent too much time dreaming up plot lines for crime fiction. But for me, 4G Warfare was a way of ordering the world of conflict and criminality which is, after all, the backdrop lots of us genre writers use for our stories.

My impulse to follow this thread is powerful because once, fifteen years ago, I had a similar epiphany. By chance, I attended a series of law enforcement seminars on the then-new field of forensics, scientific crime fighting. I said to myself, “Wow, there’s a mystery franchise here.”

I started dabbling in blood splatter analysis and criminal profiling. I was just getting rolling on a plot line when Patricia Cornwell introduced Kay Scarpetta into the popular vernacular. Figuring there was only room for one forensics crime fighter in the genre, I abandoned the idea.

(Shows how little I know.)

So it's not surprising that another ground-breaking concept, the idea of new generations of iterations of warfare, really smoked my brain. The blending together of military action with crime fighting and counterterrorism was invigorating. The possibility that new rules apply to the age-old game of money, power and violence made my hair stand on end.

But it rang true. How else, for instance, can you understand what’s going on in Iraq, where religious factions and militias traffic in stolen oil as a means of financing attacks against American soldiers and where, at the same time, jihadis supported by oil billionaires attack everybody in an effort to destroy all order so they can start over again to create their own caliphate? Fourth Generation warfare, or its relatives 5G and 6G, are the best way I have discovered to describe what is happening around us.

And in case you think such things have no relevance in the comfortable old United States, think again.
Think, for instance, about the US/Mexico border, the world’s longest running joke, where Zeta--armed groups of former Mexican Army special forces crime fighters--now operate on both sides of the line in behalf of drug traffickers. Yes, they kill in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, too.

And they get away with it.

Think, too, about the number of neighborhoods in Los Angeles and many other cities where police no longer claim to be in control.

Or think, if you will, about your local bank, which may well be/become a money-laundering institution in behalf of the Russian Mafiya, the CIA or some innocently-named Islamic charity that pours funds into training new hijackers or modern-day Malay pirates.

We don’t have the old duality, the cold-war struggles that provided story lines for Fleming, LeCarre, Deighton and Helen MacInnes. What we have is a much more splintered world where the threats and the forces to counter those threats are being invented as you read this.

Or maybe someone already invented it. A popular fiction writer. The other day I ran across a blog entry by one of the 4G experts which directed me to a seminal American crime novel, Red Harvest, by Dashiell Hammett, creator of Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles.

In this novel, the hero, an operative for the Continental Detective Agency, is sent to a city to investigate a single murder. As he digs deeper and deeper, he finds himself involved in a chaotic mélange of organized crime, law enforcement, and both local and national politics. He gets his head busted a couple of times and finally gets mad enough that he decides to clean up the whole mess.

How does he do it? He pits the several gangs against one another and against the police and the politicians. There is an absolute donnybrook, a kind of 6G war of all against all. And soon enough, justice and peace prevail once again because the antagonists have pretty much killed one another off.

Now that’s modern warfare, friends, and Red Harvest was written in 1929.

So now you have some idea of where the recent Two of a Kind/Elizabeth Lowell stories have come from. It’s my—and my wife’s—way of saying that we believe that writers and readers of fiction can learn about the way the world really is, and enjoy that learning.

We decided that if we are going to write stories that have some relevance to today’s world, we have to shift our frames of fictional reference to accommodate the new realities. The heroes and heroines of the stories that Elizabeth Lowell writes live in that chaotic new world; and often, they begin their journey every bit as lost as you and I sometimes feel.

But her characters learn and experiment and fight back against some odds that are pretty stiff. In the process, those characters often find other like-minded souls willing to engage in the ongoing struggle to bring order out of chaos.

Because this is fiction, popular fiction, the hero/heroine usually wins, although not always in the ways you might expect.

That willingness to fight is, after all, the very basis of heroic action, and we hope these stories convince readers to act as heroically as possible.

If they don’t, the world is, indeed, in trouble.

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In addition to 20 years as a crime reporter for The Los Angeles Times, Evan Maxwell has collaborated on many novels with his wife (sometimes as A. E. Maxwell), as well as written two novels under his own name, ALL THE WINTERS THAT HAVE BEEN and SEASON OF THE SWAN.

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

CAMERON CRUISE, author of THE COLLECTOR

THE SECOND DAY OF CHRISTMAS

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me… an invitation to blog! A heartfelt thanks to Stella Cameron—I have been a fan for years—for reading the manuscript for THE COLLECTOR and giving a new voice in the paranormal thriller genre a listen … and, of course, for allowing me this introduction to her readers.

I must confess that every Christmas my parents pulled out all the stops. My sister and I would wake up on Christmas morning and the presents would be lined up like the aisles at FAO Schwartz. Well, actually, I was born in Cuba, so we didn’t receive gifts on Christmas day, but rather on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. The presents came from the Three Kings, not Santa Clause, and we left out a shoe at the hearth instead of a stocking!

At the time, I took my good fortune for granted, but I have since come to understand my mother was trying to make up for all the things she’d missed as a child. My grandfather died when she was only nine and my grandmother and her two daughters were forced to move in with relatives. It wasn’t quite Cinderella and her stepsisters, but times were tough.

Since then, my mother has been an overachiever in all things, including Christmas. But the Christmas that I remember most had nothing to do with toy-store opulence. In 1965, after four years waiting, my parents were granted permission to leave Cuba by the government. Under Castro’s dictatorship, everything we owned, including my mother’s wedding ring, belonged to the State and must be left behind. The four of us were allowed to leave only with one suitcase and the clothes on our backs (three layers for my sister and myself as well as a coat … seriously, we looked like two little Michelin men). At the time, there were no direct flights to the United States and we flew to Madrid, Spain.

My parents hit the pavement looking for work; they desperately needed money to pay for our flight to the United States, where friends and their church had sponsored my family. My mother tells me that her feet hurt so much from wearing her high heels that my father sawed them off! We lived in a pension, a boarding house, and my eight-year-old sister took care of me, with the owner of the boarding house looking in on us at lunch.

We arrived in Spain at the end of November with Christmas just around the corner. I was introduced to Santa Claus in an event set up for the poor. My sister and I stood in a very long line, waiting for our turn to sit on Santa’s lap. I received a doll—what I was told would be my only present that Christmas.

Still have the doll! Hey, symbols are important.

Only, the story doesn’t end there. Apparently, my parents decided that their two children had been traumatized enough. They didn’t want that one symbol of happiness—Christmas—to change, like so much had changed in our young lives since the Cuban revolution. That night, my parents went out and spent every penny they had on gifts they couldn’t afford. I think of that now, my sensible parents throwing caution to the wind, and I am simply amazed. But I realize the big gestures sometimes go a long way.

My sister and I woke up to another FAO Schwartz extravaganza. To this day, I can almost remember every present I received, silly things like fake nails, plastic jewelry, and dress-up clothes. Nothing expensive, but to my sister and me it was like a dream come true.

Every year, I give presents to children. I like the personal angle: adopt a family or a child. It makes me remember my Christmas in Spain. Not everybody gets to experience Christmas through the generosity of others and then pass it forward. Funny, how it’s not about a PS3 or Skinny Jeans. It can be about fake plastic nails and cheap crayons. I try very hard to remember that.

Well, now that you’ve seen my sentimental side, I hope you can enjoy my murder and mayhem. Adventure is in my blood, after all!

Merry Christmas to all!

Cameron

Walking In A Witchy Wonderland

Yasmine Galenorn

When Stella asked me to guest blog here, I was thrilled—and Walking in a Witchy Wonderland seemed the perfect title. Then I panicked a little. After all, I celebrate the Winter Solstice, not Christmas—will my stories translate? And yet, some of our traditions are the same. Then I thought, what’s the problem? An underlying theme of both holidays is that of love. Love for friends, love for family—magical connections that cross all boundaries of faith, gender, ability or disability, and age.

Holidays are very important to me. When I was thirteen and my mother and stepfather stopped celebrating everything but Thanksgiving and even that was fraught with tension. From an abusive childhood, I left home at seventeen with my AA degree, but within two years promptly married an abusive husband who also hated celebrating holidays. After nine years and a nasty beating at the end, I said enough, kicked him to the curb, and declared I’d never compromise myself or what I wanted out of life for anyone again. And I’ve kept that promise.

When I remarried in 1993, it was to a kind, wonderful, and loving man who has been the comfort and anchor I’ve needed. He loves the holidays, he knows how important they are to me and encourages me to go all out. So over the years, I’ve slowly built up the holiday season to a lovely three month extravaganza starting with Samhain (our autumn celebration of the ancestors) and culminating with Yuletide.

Our Yule tree is the tree I’ve always wanted—Victorian and bedecked with sparkling ivory, gold, and burgundy ornaments (we have an artificial tree to keep the cats out of it—which usually works). Each year, we buy a special ornament to mark the passage of time. Our house is swathed in garlands and lights. I absolutely love lights and think of them as “faerie sparkles” because they remind me of magic shimmering in the night. And every year, we host an open house for our friends. The scents of cinnamon and bayberry fill the air, and our table overflows with offerings to comfort and delight our guests. We do this as a gift to our friends—a chance for them to spend some quiet time out of the bustle of shopping and rushing around. A day steeped in friendship, food and warmth, and the comfort of leisurely conversation.

Late at night on the eve of the Solstice, we open our gifts, and once again “turn the wheel” to welcome the sun back from the icy realm of winter. We celebrate the longest night of the year, the time when the Holly King and the Lord of the Oak meet in battle, and play out an age old drama as the sun returns triumphant from the depths of darkness with the promise that, yes, spring and summer will come again. And on night of the summer Solstice, the Holly King will rise again and win. The waning of the year, the waxing of the year—eternal cycles of life with no beginning and no end.

And yes, we also give gifts. I admit it, I love prezzies—both giving and receiving them (probably because of all those years of going without), but really, the most important part of the holiday is that we’ve created meaningful traditions and memories as the years go by.

The first year we were married, Samwise and I were so poor we could barely afford to buy our first tree. Friends gave us hand-me down ornaments. We made all of our gifts—cookies and popcorn balls—and that was enough for me. I was just thrilled to be happy and with the man I loved.

I’d managed to save enough to buy him a new T-shirt, but when I opened his gift to me, I found a box filled with chocolate kisses—hundreds of them! And snuggled deep beneath that chocolate heaven, I found a gift box containing my favorite perfume and lotion—Opium. Now, Opium’s an expensive perfume. Stunned, I asked him how he managed to buy it. We had no extra money and I managed the budget.

My real gift came when he explained what he’d done to earn the money. Samwise had gone out collecting soda cans for months and recycled them. He’d managed to collect enough cans to buy me the perfume. That was my real gift, the realization that he loved me enough to go through all that work to make me happy. Over the years, I’ve received more expensive gifts, but even though every gift he buys me is special, I’ll never, ever forget that box of Opium. The fragrance in those little bottles of perfume and lotion is long gone, but the memory of the effort he put into buying them will never, ever fade.

If you want to see our Yuletide decorations, please feel free to visit my photo gallery: http://www.galenorn.com/greenwood/hearth/#Yuletide And thank you for letting me share one of my special holiday memories with you. Now, I know that I can’t be the only one who received a gift from the heart like that. So tell me, what present has someone given you that managed to create a memory you’ll never forget?

Yasmine Galenorn

Susan Welcomes Guest Blogger Christie Ridgway

You know how there are certain authors whose books you rush to purchase the minute they hit the shelves? Christie is one of those for me. I LUV her stuff and can hardly wait for each new release.

This is clearly my lucky month. MUST LOVE MISTLETOE is in bookstores as we speak.(I found mine on the New Books tower at B&N) And then the day after Christmas? Fuggedibout fighting the crowds in search of a bargain that's probably only on sale in the first place because no one else wanted it. If you simply must subject yourself to that stress, at least treat yourself to a copy of NOT ANOTHER NEW YEAR'S while you're out and about.

Until then , please welcome today's guest blogger.

Hit, it, Christie!

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Thanks for letting me visit here, everyone! I’m a fan of the blog and a big fan of the authors, so it’s like an early Christmas present for me to be at Running With Quills. Thanks so much.

As Susan mentioned I have a book out this month and next month too, which would put me in a tizzy anyhow, and then it’s the holiday season as well. But face it, can Christmas ever go smoothly? I have an added complication in that my older son was born on December 22nd. So I shop, shop, shop and never stop, it seems. And still, there are things left undone or ways in which I wished I’d done better. You too, right?

So in the spirit of giving, here are my Christmas confessions that I hope might make you feel less alone about being less-than-perfect this holiday season.

I threw away the stickers that belonged on the Mega-Motor Mountain one year. It was this cool, gigantic contraption that we'd bought. Hot Wheels cars roar down its t